  Spiritual
This week: We All Share This Planet Edited by: Kit of House Lannister  
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Different countries have different cultures and that is great. The world would probably be a boring place if wherever we travelled, everywhere was the same. That doesn't mean, though, that as humans our differences are more important than the things that we share. We are all human. There's always a common ground to be found.
This week's Spiritual Newsletter is about xenophobia.
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Xenophobia.... It's not nice and it's not pretty. It's silly, too, as we're all human beings and we all inhabit this planet together.
I don't think about xenophobia that often. I was raised in a very multicultural city in the Netherlands and some of my first memories contain people from a variety of different cultural backgrounds. The children in my primary school had their roots in countries such as Surinam, Morocco, Turkey, India, Indonesia, New Zealand and, indeed, Holland. We all got along and any differences were met with fascination and harmless curiosity.
I now live in the British countryside, and though I am aware things have changed somewhat in the country of my birth, and I am aware that here in Britain tensions have risen as well in the current economic climate, it's not often that I am exposed to something nasty. I do remember one incident a couple of years ago when my sister was around for a visit. We were on our way back from a walk over the hills, chattering away in Dutch, when a man made a loud comment about how "the Poles should go back to where they came from". We were alone on that road, the man, my sister and I, and it was obvious that his comment was aimed at us. He may have had our identity wrong, but the sentiment remained.
As usual, I watched the British version of Celebrity Big Brother this year. Yes, it's cheap and cheerful television, not exactly highbrow, but regular readers will know that I like watching people. I like to watch the different relationships form in such an unusual environment, and I was all the more interested this time as sociology is the current focus of my studies. There were three American housemates in this series - the actor Michael Madsen and twins who used to inhabit a famous place with Hugh Hefner and posed for a well-known publication of his. The twins were good viewing because they openly played the game. Michael Madsen was my favourite and I wanted him to win.
The show does tend to have a passionate audience and emotions can run high when people support their favourites, but this time around debates took an unpleasant turn. Instead of a focus on the different personalities and on their actions in the house, nationality got dragged into it. This was even the case on the official spin-off show on the television, something I didn't anticipate and something that left a bitter taste in my mouth. A panelist expressed the view that Americans shouldn't be allowed on a British show, and on the night of the final, which should be a celebration, the crowd awaiting the final five indulged in chants such as "Get the Yanks out".
I took part in a radio show that night. The host is an American man who usually loves Big Brother UK. He and I couldn't be more different in some respects - politically speaking he is a conservative whilst I am a tree hugging, yogurt knitting, bleeding-heart liberal. He thinks that American football is the real football, whilst I remind him that what he calls soccer, actually, is the only real footie there is. Still, he's a good guy. When he does his music shows he always plays me some GN'R, because he knows I love them. And we have a common passion for chocolate. The night of the final he tried to make light of what he'd just witnessed on the television, and of some comments he'd received on Twitter that went along the same lines, but I knew he was hurt, and I didn't like it.
I felt ashamed of the people in that crowd and the panelists on that show. And then, I thought that that's silly, too. They don't represent Britain, and that again is thinking of people of different nations as different from people of other nations. The actions and the xenophobia expressed that night were the actions and xenophobia of individuals who, hopefully, are in the minority.
Whilst there's nothing wrong in enjoying different cultures, as without them the world would probably be a bit of a bland place, it's important to remember that as people we tend to have a lot in common. We are all human. We love, we laugh, we cry, we despair, we seek for the truth and the meaning of our lives.
We may have different spiritual paths, we hold different political views and we may even have different opinions on football, but there is always a common ground to be found if we choose to look for it. A website like Writing.Com, for example, is an online home for people from all around the world, and we all share a love for the written word.
Tonight I'll seek out my American friend when he hosts his first political broadcast on the 2012 Presidential elections. I know that I won't agree with him on some points. I also know that it will be interesting, and that even though I am not an American, I will be welcome. There won't be a call to "Get the Brits/Dutch out".
That's one of the beautiful aspects about the Internet. The more we learn about people from other countries, the better a chance we stand of eradicating ugly things like xenophobia.
kittiara
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For this week's Editor's Picks, I have chosen some of the latest creations in the Spiritual genre. I hope you will enjoy them  .
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The Spiritual Newsletter Team welcomes any and all questions, suggestions, thoughts and feedback, so please don't hesitate to write in!
Jessette  - New Year is another year to come in our life, another challege to face, new success in life. forgetting the past, facing a new life. pursuing our dreams that we are not able to meet the past year. A year for renewing everything that we regrets. A new trials that come our ways. Above all a chance for us to get closer to God to us forgiveness that cause us failure.
Thanks for writing in! I fully agree with you
~~~
Steve adding writing to ntbk.  - Good newsletter and wishing you a happy and prosperous new year. Looking forward to the reviewing fodder you present in 2012, and thanking you for taking the time to find such good ones in 2011.
Copenator out!
Thank you so very much for your kind words, Copenator!
~~~
monty31802 - Thanks for the fine Newsletter.
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it!
~~~
Zeke  - I have experienced cases where a great idea just arrives uninvited and forces me to write.
Zeke
So have I, Zeke. It happened when I started on NaNoWriMo. I fully expected to continue with a novel I already had in the works, adding another 50K words to it, but when I opened Word, another story happened to me. It's fun when that happens .
~~~
Wishing you a week filled with inspiration,
The Spiritual Newsletter Team:
Sophy  , KimChi , kittiara
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Spiritual: February 01, 2012 Issue [#4856]
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